FCPX export options stay grayed-out; can't share to file.

Slightly older version of FCPX, I have a bit over 6 hours of HD footage painstakingly assembled into a 2-hour rough cut that I wish to export as H.264 or Prores 422, but all the options to export or share remain grayed-out.

I selected everything on the timeline, Hit "render all": this has sometimes fixed the problem in the past. I have done this twice now for the current program without success; the render happens, according to the progress bars, but export/share options still grayed out, no explanations given.

I'm going to try playing the timeline out live, thru my IO system or via Thunderbolt into a KiPro recorder, next, but would appreciate opinions, conjecture, and even helpful advice on the specific problem.

Trashed prefs as suggested.... and now the last third of the timeline is a red mess of "missing camera" picons. No biggie, just a day and a half's worth of work went "poof" just now. Panicking? Who's panicking? I got til lunch time to fix this. THEN I'll be panicking.

I re-imported source footage into the fresh library and project file, and told it to render, went to lunch, came back, the bleeding was gone and the timeline restored. Better yet, the export options are back in black, baby! So I'm trying a test export right now. Will take a while, but looks promising for now.

I never have a problem like this if I follow Shane's Law and copy the P2 cards off to folders in my AV drive before importing them. Only when I work with footage where it's not being copied over on import, do I get into these tangles, even though I never removed the P2 from the reader. It's like random "forgetfulness" hits the thing every once in a while - always when you're on a deadline, too.

Maybe that's fixed in the latest build, and if I ever get out from under my current project backlog and clear off ALL the drives, we'll upgrade and see.

[Mark Suszko]"I never have a problem like this if I follow Shane's Law and copy the P2 cards off to folders in my AV drive before importing them"

I think this happens when you quit FCPX before it's done rewrapping, regardless of where the media is. The way FCPX works is that you can see and use the media before it's done rewrapping, so if you quit before it's done rewrapping, FCPX leaves you linked to the original media in some sort of "not quite online" state. This seems like it could be programed a bit better to be able to get out of this jam.

I've seen this same issue. My wife edits and she is frequently under time pressure and there have been instances where clips were "imported" but not all the behind the scenes business is finished and she closes the project/library/FCPX and then the next time the project is opened there are some clips that are "not quite there", which of course fouls any attempted exports.

Share options are greyed out if any of the clips are "camera clips", ie located on a camera or Data card. They will have a camera icon in the bottom left corner of the clip in the browser. To rectify this, select the clip(s) and then go to File > Import > Reimport from camera/archive. Once that's completed, the project should export!

Hey Chris, I've been too busy to respond until just now, but I wanted to say it was providential that you posted your response when you did. The moment it went up, I was in exactly the situation you described, stuck and not sure what was causing it. Your post literally popped into my email in-box as I was getting ready to call for more help and it made me look in the right place to solve the problem. Your timing could not have been better unless controlled by a divine hand. Just wanted to give a belated thanks to you and the others in this thread for the help.

Annnnd...... it's happening again..... but on another project, and this is one where the original footage was first offloaded to a folder in the RAID, and the P2 card ejected, before we even created the project/library/events.

I imported into FCPX from the folder on the RAID, did a swell edit, and now again I can't export it. I'm not at the office to double-check if the camera clip icons Chris mentioned are present, but let's assume they are not, because I've re-imported the raw media twice, and "reconnect media" is not an available option. Everything is there in the timeline, and it will play fine, but no dice when I hit the "render all" or the "Share" commands. Soon as this project is done, I'm going to upgrade the FCPX to the latest build and see if things get more reliable. In the meantime, any other things I might try, to get the pickles out of the jar?